Is AI Ruining Your Meta Ads?

Phil Ditchfield July 31, 2025

Over the past year, you can’t look anywhere online without seeing an article about AI, and yes, it is amazing for doing some things, but are you ready to have it as the focal point of your business?

The Truth About AI and Meta

It’s not ready! Utilising AI is an option when setting up your Meta Ads, adding “natural” backgrounds dynamically, but the sad truth is it can be very distracting and doesn’t look natural. When speaking to real people about ads and images that utilise AI, most have said it causes them to be wary of the brand. Now, if you’re an industry giant that has built trust over many years, this doesn’t really matter, but if you’re a fairly new brand looking to introduce new users to your products or services, this isn’t going to encourage a conversion and could distance potential customers who value authenticity and product uniqueness.

Meta is moving in the right direction to help improve usability for people wanting to run ads, but in its current state, it doesn’t look organic. It can also cause inconsistencies within your ads, using different backgrounds for carousel cards, using copy that just doesn’t work for the users being targeted and sounds that don’t match your branding.

Is Meta Serving Your Ads Correctly?

Meta’s Advantage+ which is driven by AI is making campaign management very easy, but it’s not perfect! Advantage+ combines all your data to help improve its targeting, utilising data about users who have engaged with an ad or purchased through one, to then target more people who will likely be interested in your brand. You no longer need to guide the ads in the right direction in terms of deciding audiences to target, as it’s automated for you.

However, like every campaign, it favours the best-performing ad (who can blame them), which means that you can often see one ad format taking 90% of your spend. Now it’s not the worst thing in the world, however from a business point of view, this can hinder your overall performance, as serving one ad means users might only be purchasing or enquiring about one product, and if you sell out, it can be a problem.

Using Advantage+ along with other campaigns, or categorising your products into separate Ad Sets, can help you control the output. If you’re not too savvy with Meta, feel free to send us an email and we’d be happy to advise.

The Fear of Change

At Red Cow Media, we’ve been discussing more and more businesses refusing to switch off ads if they’re performing well. Seeing Black Friday ads in March and ‘New Year New Me’ copy in July isn’t a mistake, it’s a business refusal to switch off their best running ads.

The truth is that the ad is taking more credit than it should be, and because of their overall reach, they’re naturally going to perform better because more budget is pushed into it. What most businesses need to be doing is running evergreen ads to keep things steady throughout the year, so you’re not reliant on promotional ads, but then also knowing when it’s time to switch things up, as another strong-performing ad will likely be just around the corner. Updating your ads is healthy and keeps your audience engaged and not infinitely scrolling!

But It’s Not All Bad

One great thing about AI is that while it’s not at its full potential yet, it’s making things a lot easier for new business owners. If you’ve started a business and don’t have the skills or funds to pay for a freelancer or agency, using AI to assist you in content creation has never been easier. Just be sure to keep checking your ads and what the AI is generating to make sure it’s not compromising your brand.

If you’re feeling a little unsure about your ads then feel free to give our team a call or email about it; we’d be happy to offer some advice!

A Free Recommendation

If you are going to leverage AI, we highly recommend that you don’t have lifestyle images as the first image on your website. Your Meta Product Catalogue pulls through the imagery and if you have models or products lying on an object, it’ll likely remove them and give you the questionable floating effect you can see above!

If you have any questions about this article, Meta or AI and Marketing in general, feel free to get in touch with our team!